'Hear ye, Spurheel, up wi' ye! And if ye so much as set your nose oot
o' your window when I am on the rope, it will no be telling you.'
So I climbed up and shut-to the window, and long before I was settled in
bed I heard the two sisters talking softly together in the room beneath.
So I knew that Nell Kennedy had carried out her mad ploy.
*CHAPTER XIV*
*THE ADVENTURE OF THE GARDEN*
I need not tell all the reasons why my well-beloved and kindly master,
Sir Thomas Kennedy, had grown to be hated with a deadly feud by all the
ill-conditioned of the Bargany faction, saving indeed by Gilbert Kennedy
of Bargany himself. For one thing, my master was the man of the best
and wisest counsels among all the supporters of Cassillis. He had many
virtues, being well-liked wherever he went for kindliness and
courteousness. Also he was a man of good principles and religion, so
far as the times permitted, and indeed somewhat beyond, as he found to
his own bitter cost or all was done.
Still more, my master Culzean was never one to suspect evil of any man,
and was ever prone to cover wrack and ruin by over-trust and
graciousness.
The first act of a great and wide conspiracy to compass his death was
now to be played, for Thomas of Drummurchie, the brother of young
Bargany, was not of so lofty a spirit as his chief. Indeed, to speak
plainly, he was no better than an assassin and a common bully. He
caused all the country-side to lie in terror for fear of him, being
great with none, save only with the Lairds of Auchendrayne,--which was a
strange thing considering their outward profession of strict honour.
It happened that there was a worthy knight, an indweller in the town of
Maybole, Sir Thomas Nisbett by name, who was a crony of my master
Culzean. Now, it was the practice for the gentry of the neighbourhood
during the winter, to enter in and dwell within the town of Maybole in
many pretty and well-built houses of freestone, diverting themselves
during the dead time of the year with converse together in each other's
houses. These stand for the most part in the chief street of Maybole,
and have fine gardens attached to them. Of them all, that of the Earl
of Cassillis, is the largest, but the one belonging to my master Culzean
is but little behind it in beauty and convenience.
But Sir Thomas Kennedy bode little about his house in Maybole, chiefly
because his lads and lasses loved most to remain at Culzean, where the
cliffs are and the sea spreads wide, clattering pleasantly on the rocks,
and with the birds blithely swirling and diving about it all the year
round. And of this I also was glad, for to live in a town is a thing I
cannot abide for any long time, being bred to the life of the hills and
to the wind in my face.
Now, on this New Year's Day, it so happened that this Sir Thomas Nisbett
had invited my master, being, as I say, a crony of his own, and of an
age with him, to sit down at supper in his house in Maybole. So Culzean
took horse and a small attendance, of whom I was the chief, and rode
over to bide the night in Maybole town, meaning to lodge in his own
house, and in the morning return to his Castle of Culzean.
My master was a mightily curious man in one particular. He could not
abide any repair of people coming and going with him on his journeyings.
And if in a quieter time he had gotten his will, he would have ridden
here and there without any attendance whatever--so kindly and
unsuspicious of evil was his nature. On the New Year night he had
bidden me to remain within doors, because, as he said, he knew his way
home full well from Sir Thomas Nisbett's house. Also, I suspect, he
wished me not to observe whether he retained his usual walk and
conversation, after seeing the New Year in with the Provost and the
other Sir Thomas, for the custom of Maybole was exceedingly hospitable.
New Year's Day had been dark and gloomy. The promise of oncoming foul
weather was in the feel of the raw, drooky air. No sooner was it dark
than a smurr of rain began to fell, very wetting and thick, so that even
with torches it had been impossible to see many paces. We reached our
lodging at the town house of Culzean before the night had set in, and as
the supper was at six of the clock, it was no long time before my master
took his way to Sir Thomas Nisbett's house. He left me seated by the
fire with a book of chronicles of the wars to read. As soon, however,
as he had issued forth upon the street, I took my bare sword in my hand,
and by another door I sallied forth also. For in such a town as Maybole
there are always ill-set folk that would gladly do an injury to a
well-kenned and well-respected man like my master. And much more now
when the feud had waxed so hot and high.
But it chanced that Sir Thomas, so soon almost as he set foot over the
doorstep, greeted his fellow-guest, the Provost of the town--who, as
became his office, had with him one to hold the tail of his furred gown
out of the clarty mud, and also a lad with a torch running before him.
Nevertheless, I followed on in that darker dusk which succeeds the glare
of a torch. On our way we had to pass through the garden behind the
house of Sir Thomas Nisbett, which was full of groset bushes, divided by
high hedges of yew and box. I came softly after them, and abode still
by the gate when the Provost and his train had passed through with our
good knight in their midst. The pair of them were talking jovially
together as they went, like men with toom kytes that know they are going
in to be filled with good cheer.
'I declare I am as hungry as a moudiewort in a black frost,' said the
douce Provost. 'I haena seen meat the day. What wi' hearkening to auld
wives denouncing ane anither for kenned and notour witches, and sending
men of the tribes of little Egypt to the Tolbooth, my life has no been
my ain.'
My master laughed loudly and heartsomely.
'It is weel to be hungry and ken o' meat,' he replied, in the words of
the well-kenned proverb.
And the pair of them laughed with their noses in the air, easily
mirthful like men that strengthen themselves with the comfortable smell
of dinner blown through an open door.
But I question much whether they had laughed so heartily if they had
seen what I saw at that moment. And that was a face looking over the
height of the yew hedge--a face wrapped about the mouth with a grey
plaid and with a grey brimmed hat pulled close down over the eyes. As
the flickering of the torch died out at the entering in of the house
door, I saw the man raise his hand in a warning and forbidding gesture,
as though he made a signal to men who could see him, but who were hidden
from my sight.
This was enough for me. I resolved that those who plotted evil behind
backs should have to war with Launce Kennedy, who, at least, was no mean
foe, and one not given to wearing his eyes under his coat.
Not for a moment after this could I leave the garden, for one of the
villains might have gone to the window and shot at my master through the
glass--as one had done years before to good Maister John Knox (who, as I
have heard tell, reformed religion in this land) on an evening he sat
quietly reading his book and drinking of his ale in his own house in the
High Street of Edinburgh.
So I got me into an angle of the garden and climbed a wall, which, being
grown with ivy, was a good and safe post of vantage. From thence I
could overlook the whole enclosure. After a little my eyes became better
accustomed to the darkness. The lights from the windows also made a
faint glimmering athwart the hedges, and I could distinctly see men
darning themselves into their hiding-places, and getting ready their
pistols and hackbutts.
Even as I sat there on the wall and froze, a plan came into my head
which sent the blood surging through my veins, like the tide scouring
the gut of Solway. I remembered that Sir Thomas Kennedy was at no time
very active on his legs, and what with the income in his knee and the
good wine under his belt, he would assuredly be in no key for running
when he issued forth.
Also they were certainly many who lay in wait for him. I counted at
least five moving about in the faint light. So I mounted the top of the
ivied wall, and slid down the outside, landing heavily on my hinderlands
in a ditch. I stole round to the gable door of Nisbett's house, and
told the manservant that I had come to see my master, whereupon they
permitted me to go up to the room on the first storey, where the guests
were already set down at the banquet. I knew well that it was no use
speaking to my lord, but I did venture to call out the host, Sir Thomas
Nisbett, whose head was stronger and whose heart more readily suspicious
than those of the Laird of Culzean.
Him I told how the matter stood, whereupon he wished to speak to the
Provost and to call the town officers. But I assured him that these
determined assassins in the yard could render an account of the town
guard twice told over.
'So,' said I, 'I have this to propose to you in a word. When the time
comes for the guests to depart, you will detain my master--and the
Provost, too, if you can.'
'Ere I have done with them they will not move far to-night, or my name
is not Thomas Nisbett,' said the host, nodding his head, for these were
the manners and hospitalities of the time.
'And you will lock them in a secure place till the morning!'
'But,' said Nisbett, 'will not the villains attack my house? If it be
as you say, they have assurance for everything.'
I told him that they might very well do that, but that if he gave me a
mailed coat with plate sleeves, and also kneecaps of steel, together
with my arms and cap, I thought I could make a race for it and carry
them all off along with me.
'But, laddie,' he cried, 'ye gang to your death!'
I told him not so, for that even when accoutred I was a notable runner,
and could course like a hare.
'And in any case, better Launce Kennedy be dead than Culzean, or the
Provost and yourself, Sir Thomas Nisbett. What would happen to the town
and countryside then?'
'Ay, better that,' he said very sententiously, at which I could scarce
forbear but smile, for the very simplicity of the man was such that he
not only counted his life worth more than mine, but expected me to do
the same. However, it was not concerning him, but of my master and my
master's children that I thought. What mattered little to a Kennedy of
Kirrieoch, mattered greatly to Sir Thomas Kennedy, Tutor of Culzean.
Yet I know not that I had any great fear of failure, for I had thus far
won off scot-free, even when in the general engagement our faction had
gotten the worst of it. And so I thought to do always.
The evening wore on like eternity, and I had many a thought in my heart,
though but few of them were sad or waesooie, for I was too young. Most
of all I prayed that I might bear myself well, and in some shape at
least carry the matter through without dishonour.
When the Provost and my master had well drunken and eaten yet more,
their host stole away from them on a pretext, and came to the chamber
where I sat in darkness, planning how to make my way through the garden.
He brought me presently the equipment of which I had need, and of his
own accord added another pistol of admirable French workmanship. For
France is ever the country for good ordnance of all sorts--from the
pistolet which Sir Thomas Nisbett gave me to the cannons that dang down
the Castle of Saint Andrews about the heads of Normand Leslie and his
crew.
'Gin ye live ye kin keep the pistol,' he said, as one that did me a vast
kindness.
Then over my steel cap I set the great broad hat of Sir Thomas of
Culzean, and did his cloak about me.
It was now the time to go, and I tell you true, my heart beat a pretty
tune to dance to as I stood at the back of the door--with my host hiding
well in the rear, lest they should nick him by firing as the light
within showed me plain in the doorway.
So I ordered the lamp to be removed and the door to be opened. Then my
host bade me adieu in a loud, hearty tone, and said that he would come
round and visit me in the morning. It was with a bitter sort of joy,
not wholly unpleasant, that I heard the door clash sharply to behind me.
I had my sword in my right hand and my pistol ready bent in the other.
And I bethought me how many would have risked the same wager of battle.
There was a light flickering somewhere in the town--belike a party
passing homeward with torches from a merry making, or some of the
bonfires lighted for the inbringing of the New Year. I could see my
friend of the beckoning hand now standing erect with his plaid about
him. He was the same I had seen at the burning of the Bible when I was
but a boy in the courtyard of Ardstinchar, and, I doubted not, the Grey
Man of our later troubles.
I knew that the sharpshooters would be placed in the alleys of the
garden. Indeed, I had seen them pass to their situations, and observed
that they had their hackbutts carefully pointed at the path along which
I must pass. So instead of walking directly down the main road to the
gate, I made believe to stumble on the threshold, and to recover myself
with an exclamation of pain, in order that I might divert them into
waiting till I should come their way. For I must perforce pass by the
mouths of their muskets so close that they could not miss.
But instead of taking the main avenue, I darted sideways along the
narrower path which led round the garden's edge, and there, cowering in
the angle, I waited for what should happen. In their hurry and surprise
I heard one hackbutt go off with a crash, and the light from the touch
lit up the garden. Then in the darkness that followed I ran further
down the walk towards the outer gate. In the midst I came upon a fellow
who kneeled with his musket upon a stick, trained upon the middle path
by which they had hoped that Culzean would come. Then with my sword I
stuck the hulking villain through that part of him with which I came
most readily in contact. What that might be, I declare that I know not
until this day. Only I judged that it could not have been a very mortal
one, by the vigour with which he cried out.
Then indeed there was confusion and deray to speak about. I saw the
form of the Grey Man, whom I had observed directing the ambush, rise
from the further dyke-side. He spoke sharply like one that cries
orders, and at the word many men came rushing pell-mell to see what was
the cause of the hideous outcry on that side of the garden where I was.
But I overstepped the carcase of the rascal into whom I had set my good
blade, and most circumspectly made my way down the side of the wall
unseen of any.
But when I had advanced as far as the way out by the single gate, my
fate came, as it were, to the stern and deadly breach. For there were
marksmen who had their pieces trained on that place. With my own eyes I
had seen them set themselves in position. Nevertheless, the noise
behind waxed so imminent that I drew a long breath, and sprang at the
opening. As I went through, ten or twelve pieces at the least, both
pistolets and hackbutts, were loosed off against me. I heard the
bullets splash, splash all about my legs and body, and one that had
bounded from the lintel of the door-post, dunted me on the breastplate,
which it was a God's mercy I had minded to wear. Yet for all I escaped
wholly unscathed.
Outside the gate there were two fellows that withstood me, and I had
small time to ask whether they were friends or foes. So, to make
siccar, I speered no catechisms of them, but only shot off my pistol
into one of the thickest parts of one, setting the muzzle almost to his
belt, and with yet more gladness gave the other a sound iron thrust in
the shoulder. For all my life I have loved the point more than the
edge--and a thousand times better than the powder and lead--which is an
uncertain hit-or-miss thing at best.
I cleared the yett, sprang through, and there I had it down the High
Street of Maybole with the bullets spelking about me like hailstones,
and chance night-wandering burghers scudding for their doors like conies
on the sandy knowes.
I heard the fierce rush of men behind me, and looking over my shoulder I
saw some ten running my way with their swords drawn in their hands. So
I knew that it was likely there would be one among them who could outrun
me, having war-gear upon me and that not all mine own. With that I
undid the cloak of the Laird of Culzean, my master, and let it fall; and
so much lightened I sped on till, near to the house of one Matthew
M'Gowan, they fairly ran me to earth.
*CHAPTER XV*
*A MIDNIGHT LEAGUER*
The place of my refuge was a summer-house set in a garden, and mostly
made of wood. But it had three feet of stonework about the walls, which
chance fortifications, as I think, saved my life. Then I praised the
forethought with which I had brought with me abundant powder and shot in
the horns I had slung at my girdle. I also remembered to thank
Providence for misdirecting the bullets as I ran out of the garden door.
Here in this small child's playhouse it was my fortune to stand such a
siege as mayhap never man stood before. And of that I shall tell, so
that all may judge and see whether the reward which the Earl of
Cassillis afterwards obtained for me, was at all out of keeping (as some
allege) with the services which I, Launce Kennedy, sometime esquire,
rendered to him and his house.
Yet I did the thing for love and by no means for reward. Ay, and
largely without thought also. For such was the spirit of the times,
that wagers of battle were accepted lightly to spite one and overpass
another, like children that play Follow-my-leader upon the street.
So I lay in my summer-house, behind the low breastwork of stone, while
above me the bullets rattled through the frail woodwork like hailstones
that splash into still water.
Lying thus prone, I charged my pistols--a thing which, from long
practice, I could do very well in the dark, and gazed out through the
open windows that looked every way. What I suffered from most was the
want of light upon the approaches of my castle at the top of the garden.
For I was placed upon a little hill, and the ground sloped in every
direction from me. Yet even this advantage of position did me little
good, for the light was too uncertain to show me those that might come
against me. And more than all, this uncertainty put me in a sweat lest
I should shoot at shadows and allow the real enemy that came to invade
and slay me to pass harmless, so that they would break upon me before I
was aware.
Occasionally, however, the light that burned somewhere in the town cast
glimmerings over the garden, and then I could see dark figures that
crouched and scudded behind bushes and sheltered ayont the trunk of
every leafless tree. After that God-sent illumination grew brighter, I
think it is not too much to say that each time I got a fair chance at an
enemy, there was one rascal the fewer alive--or at least one that had a
shot the more in him. It cheered me to see them crawling out of the
range of my ordnances as if they had been few and I a host.
Most of all I aimed, with the deadliest and most prayerful intent to
kill, at the tall man in the cloak, whom I had seen from the first
directing the ploy. Time and again I believed that I had him, but upon
each occasion it was some meaner rogue that bore the brunt.
Thus I held my own with Sir Thomas's French pistol laid aside ready for
them if they came with a rush, and my own for common use to load and
fire again withal, till the barrels almost scorched me with the heat.
Also I kept my sword ready to my hand, for when it comes to the edge of
death, I put more confidence in my blade than in all the ordnance in the
land. Though Heaven forbid that I should speak against the pistolet,
when that very night I had so often owed my life to it. My chief hope
now was that the Provost of the place, who had been a guest with Sir
Thomas, might escape and rouse the townsfolk. The people of Maybole
loved not the Barganies greatly, but, on the contrary, were devoted to
the service of my master Culzean, because of his kindliness of
disposition, and the heartsome way he had of calling them all 'Sandy'
and 'Jeems,' according to their Christian name, a thing which goes a far
road in Scotland.
It so happened just then that the fire that did me so much good--which,
as I afterwards learned, was lighted by one of my enemies for frolic in
the wood-yard of one Duncan Crerar, millwright--burned up a little and
cast a skarrow over the garden where I was. When it was at its
brightest, there came four fellows running up the brae all with their
swords bare in their hands, so that it seemed that I was as good as
dead, for it was manifestly impossible that I could withstand them all.
But I minded the saying of a great captain of the old wars, 'Stop you
the front rank, and the second will stop of itself.' So I took good and
careful aim with my pistols at the two fellows that led the charge, and
fired. The first of them tossed his blade in the air, spun about like a
weathercock and fell headlong, while the other, lamed in his leg, as it
appeared, tried to crawl back down the hill again. The two that came
behind were no little daunted by this fall. Nevertheless, they still
came on, but I cried out as loud as I could, 'Give me the other pistols,
Sir Thomas, and I shall do for these two scoundrels also!'
At which they gave back in great astonishment and ran, I make no doubt,
to tell their masters that they had to do with more than one old man
well lined with sack and canary. Then in the breathing space I charged
my pistols again, and cried to the fellow that was limping along the
ground by the back of my summer-house,--
'Link it, my lad, back to your master, or I shall put another bullet in
ye, in a place where it will stop you from groaning and hirpling there
at my lug!'
For I understood well that he desired to take me in the rear.
At this moment there happened a thing surprising. I saw a tall, dark
figure overleap a wall at the side from which the shots came thinnest.
I saw it stoop and lay fire to something that was darker than itself,
when instantly there arose from the pile of millwright's shavings and
kindling wood a clear light which caused all the garden to be seen
without any difficulty.
Then the tall, unknown figure, which seemed yet unaccountably familiar
to me, walked slowly up the middle walk toward the summer-house, the
pistols cracking all about, and the bullets splashing faster than ever
upon the roof and sides of my shelter.
Then I saw who it was.
'Run for it, Robert Harburgh,' I cried. 'Man, you are mad.'
But I declare he never altered by a single pulse-beat his deliberate
advance. At the door he paused as one that upon the threshold would
turn to kick a yelping cur. Then giving the sharpshooters a wave of his
hand in contempt, he entered and shut the door.
'Saint Kentigern's fish and a thousand devils,' said I, 'I am not feared
of any man, but there is no sense in foolhardiness, Robert. Come in out
of reach of their bullets this moment, thou fool!'
'Ah,' he returned to me, 'I had as lief die and be done with it.'
'But then I would not, for my stomach is in good order,' replied I,
swiftly, 'so lie down on thy belly and at the least help me to keep
alive, for I am most consumedly anxious to keep my body from proving
leaky by the entering in of bullets.'
So, obediently he laid him down, watching one side of our cunning
defences. He told me that he had heard what was a-doing--how that the
Mures and Drummurchies, together with Sawny Bean, the savage carl that
was called of the common people 'The Earl of Hell,' had gotten the Laird
of Culzean in a little summer-house in a walled garden and were there
worrying him to death.
'So,' said Harburgh, 'having nought better to do, I primed my pistols
and came.'
The firing upon us grew hotter than ever. We seemed at times to be
closed within a ring of fire. Yet neither of us were the least hurt,
save that a chip from the edge of a stone, driven off by a bullet, had
struck me on the cheek and made it bleed.
When the fire which Robert Harburgh had lighted burned up, we that were
marksmen lost no chances at any who showed so much as an arm or a leg.
And many of those murderous rascals whom we did not kill outright (not
having a fair chance at them from their lying in shelter and other
causes), were at least winged and sore damaged, so that we judged that
there would be some roods of lint bandage required about Drummurchie and
Auchendrayne on the morrow.
Outside we heard a great and growing turmoil and the sound of many
voices crying 'To the death with the murderers! Break down the doors!'
It was the noise of the people who had risen in the night and were
coming to help us. For in a moment the gate of the yard was broken
down, and a rout of men in steel caps and hastily-donned armour came
pouring in. And it had been comical to watch the array, if our urgent
business had allowed. For some had put on a breastplate over their
night gear; some fought like Highlandmen in their sark-tails, which, on
the night of the New Year, must have been breezy wear; while others
again had snatched a hackbutt and had forgotten the powder, so that now
they carried the weapon like a club by the barrel.
Before these angry levies our cruel invaders vanished like smoke, as
though they had never been, clambering over walls and scurrying through
entries. But it is reported that several of them were sore hurt in thus
escaping--indeed, here and there throughout the town were no fewer than
five dead and six wounded, chiefly in the two gardens where I had been
compelled to discharge my pistols.
Robert Harburgh stepped out of the summer-house before them all,
stretching his limbs.
''Tis a cramped, ungodly place, friends,' he said. 'After all, it is
better to fight in the open and risk it!'
'Where is the Laird of Culzean?' cried some that knew him not. 'If ye
cannot show us the laird, ye shall die forthwith!'
'Nay,' replied Harburgh, 'concerning that I ken not. 'Tis not in my
province, being general information. My parish is fighting, not the
answering of questions. Come hither, Launce, and tell them of thy
master!'
Whereat I came forth and told them of the cruel plot and the attack upon
Sir Thomas at Nisbett's house. But they would not be satisfied till
they had gone there and found him. Nothing would do but that he should
show himself unhurt and speak a word to them at the window. Which,
being of short-grained temper and with a monstrous headache, he was most
loath to do. But Robert Harburgh, who had experience of suchlike, being
before his marriage a great man of his cups, poured water upon his head,
and, having dried it by rubbing, he brought him to the window, where he
spoke to the people as his kindly friends and neighbours, and thanked
them for their affection.
'Nay,' cried one, 'thank your own young squire, who has to-night ta'en
your life upon him.'
So the people of Maybole, for the honest and honourable love which they
bore us, abode under arms till the morning, and searched all the town
for the murdering ruffians of Drummurchie. Yet they found them not, for
such always have a back door to escape by.
In the morning, Sir Thomas called for his hat and cloak, and when they
were brought he started in wonder and cried, 'What, in the name of the
shrunk shanks of the Abbot of Crossraguel, is the meaning of this hole?'
Then Robert Harburgh said, ''Tis but an airy summer suit that Launcelot
wore last night, when he went forth among those that sought to kill the
Laird of Culzean.'
My master stared without comprehending. But when he fully understood,
he clasped me in his arms.
'God knows,' he said, 'I would give my right hand, if I could believe
that I had a son who would ever do as much for me. Those I have are
good for naught but golf and stool-ball.'
Wherein by his hasty words he did his honest, silly lads much wrong.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*GREYBEARDS AND DIMPLE CHINS*
One Sabbath morn there came an unwonted message to me, as I sat
lingering and idle in the armoury of Culzean. I had cleaned my own
graith and oiled the pistols--which I regularly did on the Sabbath
morning whenever I did not go to the kirk at Maybole. Now, this
particular day of which I speak, I was idly conning the leaves of a
song-book full of trifling, vain, and amatorious lilts and catches--some
of them very pleasant, however, and taking to the mind. It ought to
have been my psalm-book that I was at, God forgive me; but since
ballad-book it was, why, even so will I set it down here.
And the message that came was by the mouth of a kind of jackal or
lickpot of John Dick's--who, for reasons of his own, hated me, chiefly
because I took no share in the foulness of him and his subservient crew.
This youth was of so little worth, that in all the transactions of this
book he has not once come into the narrative--though as I now remember
he was at the tulzie in Edinburgh, and also at the flitting of the sow.
On both occasions he was the first to run.
The name of him was Colin Millar, an ill-favoured, envious, upsetting
knave, compact of various ignorances and incapacities. And there needs
no more to be said about him.
'There is a man wanting to see you down at Sandy Allison's, the
Grieve's,' he said.
Then he looked at me with the cast in his eye as crooked as a paddock's
hind leg, and says he, 'The tat will be in the fire now, I'm thinking.
They tell me that it is the Minister!'
I knew very well what the ill-tongued hound meant. So right gladly
without a word I set the knuckles of my hand, Sabbath morning though it
was, against his ugly face in a way that would leave a mark for a day or
two.
'Take you that, dog,' I said to him, 'and learn to keep a more ruly
member in your insolent head. Think not that you are John Dick, though
you carry his dirty slanders. As the wild boar gnashes its tushes, so
the little piglings squeak!'
And as he went away, lowering and snarling, I had a mind to go after him
and give him something more than my knuckles. For the thing he meant
was a lie of the devil, lighted at his furnace and spewed out of the
reek of his pit.
But as I went to the door there came a poor lad from the stable with the
same message--that there waited one for me at the house of Sandy
Allison, the Grieve.
So I knew that the dog Millar had not invented the whole matter.
Whereupon I looked carefully to my gear, did a new doublet upon me
(because it was the Sabbath day) and girt me with a sash of blue, coft
in Edinburgh and never before worn. Then setting my sword in its
sheath, I went out through the woods, which were now grown leafless and
songless.
There was a brisk air of winter, crisp without rawness, in the breeze,
and I was glad to be out of doors; for since the matter of the meeting
with Gilbert Kennedy, which by ill chance I had seen, both Marjorie and
Nell came seldom my way. Which is, perhaps, why I looked so well to my
apparelling ere I went to the Grieve's house. For a lad wearies for the
speech of women-folk, and if he gets not one kind--why, he will seek
another.
But now, when I come to think of it, I need not have troubled so to deck
myself. For after the corner is turned and the long lane leads straight
to the garden of roses, a woman cares not whether a man be clothed in
dishclouts or whether he glitters like a bridegroom in cloth of gold.
So when I came near to the house there issued forth to meet me Kate
Allison, which seemed to me like ancient days come back, and my heart
beat in a fashion I never thought to feel again. For a burnt stick is
easily lighted, and Kate Allison was, without doubt, both bonny and
kind. She was waiting for me at the corner of the barn like one that has
an assignation. So when she came near me she put her hands roguishly
behind her, and said, 'Launce Kennedy, you are a false, deceitful lad,
and no true lover. But think ye not that I care a pin, for I have
gotten a braw lad of my own, and no thanks to you. Ye can get the Lady
Marjorie to convoy hame next year from the Maybole Fair.'
And her speech made me glad, for she dropped me a courtesy and pretended
to march off. So I knew full well that if she had not been heart-whole
and at ease about all doubtful matters, she would have greeted me very
differently. So, as I say, I was glad. Yet presently I liked it not so
well as I expected, for though men are often false to their loves, they
never understand how their loves can change from loving them. I knew
well that Kate would, if not meddled with, immediately return to tell me
what had befallen, and why it was that they had sent for me.
Which indeed was just what she did.
'We have gotten a mighty grave man here with us, who came to our house
last night at e'en. We wanted to send word to the castle to Sir Thomas;
but the man said that he had had enough of the Kennedies to last him his
lifetime, and that he would put up with us, if we could make shift to
give him a bed. He is a man of a majestic and noble countenance, and
when he had come within, he took a Bible from his wallet, and tairged us
tightly on the histories of the wars of the Jews and on points of
doctrine.'
'Ye would be fit for that,' said I to her, laughing, 'for most of our
discourse has been upon points of doctrine and practice--though I mind
not that we touched upon the wars of the Jews. We had ever wars enough
of our own. Was it not so, sweet Kate?'
And I would have taken her by the waist, for that is ever the way, as I
have just been reading in my song-book, to punish a woman, when like a
pretty scold, she slanders her love. So, as the London stage catch hath
it, I forgave her for it. Yet for all she would by no means permit me to
come near her--which I was mortally sorry for. Because though I wanted
her to change, I desired her not to change so mightily as all that.
'Na, na,' she said, 'and that's by with. Kate Allison needs no general
lovers. Wear you your own lady's favours; I can get them that loe me
and none other, to wear mine.'
I pursued the subject no further at that time, meaning, however, to
return to it. For a man likes not to see the things which have been
freely his slipping from him like corn through a wide-meshed riddle. It
makes his mind linger after things long past, and he begins to think
them sweeter than any favours that ever he had, even when all the garden
was most fully his to wander in and cull at his lordly pleasure.
Too soon for my liking, therefore, we came to the door of the Grieve's
house, which was but a wide kitchen with two smaller rooms off it. I
heard a voice uplifted as it seemed in prayer, and I bethought me with
shame of my so late mean and earthly thoughts; but I looked at Kate
Allison, and she was so pleasant to look upon that I found excuses for
myself.
Then the prayer being done we went in, and they told the man in the
inner room that that same Launcelot Kennedy, for whom he had inquired,
was come.
So in a moment there came forth from the inner chamber, even as I had
expected, Maister Robert Bruce. He wore his long, black cloak, and his
fine, cloth coat showed soberly beneath it. His hat was on his head,
which he doffed for a moment to Kate Allison and her mother, and then
set on again. He bade them excuse him, for that he had much business to
talk with me. I followed him out, and as I passed Kate, methought she
looked disappointed that I should go thus soon. So, the corners of her
mouth being down, and her mother's back turned, I put my hand beneath
her chin, and plucked at the loose slip-knot of her bonnet, which was a
pretty quipsome thing that haymakers use, but prettier on her than on
any of them. Whereat she flashed forth a great, sharp pin and set it
spitefully in my arm, which also was a pleasing habit of hers. But all
was innocent and friendly enough, and my only excuse for thinking more
of daffing with Kate Allison than of listening to the grave converse of
Maister Robert Bruce, is that then I was nearing nineteen years of my
age--which, as you all do know, is a time when maids' dimples are more
moving than the wisdom of the sages.
That is all mine excuse, and, as well I wot, but a poor one. Yet when
once Maister Bruce had me in the wood, taking me by the arm, the majesty
of his countenance and the moving fervour of his voice so worked upon me
that in good sooth I thought of naught but what he said.
He told me that he was resolved to depart out of this land of Carrick
and Kyle, which might have been the Garden of Eden if it were not
inhabited by devils. He had come no speed at reconciling the parties at
feud, even as I could have told him before he began.
'When I had thought,' he said, 'that I had made some way in softening
the heart of Gilbert Kennedy, who vaunts himself to be sincerely
attached to me--and I do believe it--I said to him that he ought, for
the settling of the quarrel, to give in his submission to his liege
lord, the Earl of Cassillis. In a moment comes the fire into his eyes,
the anger grows black in his heart, and all my good words are undone. I
think you Kennedies are all of you possessed with evil spirits, even as
it was in the days of the Gadarene out of whom Christ cast many devils.'